Electrochemical evaluation of Ti/TiO 2 -polyaniline Anodes for Microbial Fuel Cells using Hypersaline Microbial Consortia for Synthetic-wastewater Treatment

Abstract

A Ti/TiO2-polyaniline (PAni) composite electrode was developed and explored with electrochemical methods. The results of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) demonstrate that under abiotic conditions the cathode is the limiting component of the electrochemical cell for the occurrence of the charge-transfer reactions. In contrast, when the Ti/TiO2-PAni composite is working as anode in the microbial fuel cells (MFCs) studied, the controlling electrochemical processes occur at the anode. The higher power densities, 2317 mW/m², were obtained with a pure culture of Geobacter sulfurreducens, and significant power density was obtained with an uncharacterized consortium, 1137 mW/m². The results showed that the Ti/TiO2-PAni anode is a suitable material to be optimized for developing highpower MFCs with G. sulfurreducens for wastewater treatment.